Infamous '64 murder lives in heart of woman's `friend'

It became a nation's shame: Kitty Genovese was viciously slain, and though many heard or saw, no one helped. Her gay lover recalls their life, her grief.

March 12, 2004|By Jeff Pearlman, Tribune Newspapers. Newsday.

NEW YORK — At the time, they were "friends"--in quotes. It's how you would explain two women living together back in 1964, when blacks were still trying to establish civil rights and the idea of gay marriage was as comprehensible as a man landing on the moon.

Sometimes, if they accidentally let their guard down in public, Mary Ann Zielonko and Kitty Genovese would exchange a loving glance, maybe even grasp hands for a second or two. Then, quickly, they would stop.

Now, looking back at two young lovers through senior citizen eyes, Zielonko measures her adoration for Genovese in numerous ways. Love was their regular Monday night sojourns to Grede's, a club where they would drink beer and listen to folk music. It was Wednesday evening meals at Hofbrau, the German restaurant down the block. It was the late-night chats and the intimate kisses and the idea that here is a person you can spend your life with.

In the end, love was identifying a body.

Forty years later, Zielonko is still haunted by the vision of Catherine "Kitty" Genovese, her partner in life, dead on a table in Queens General Hospital.

"It is something," she says softly, "that stays with me."

To millions of Americans, the name Kitty Genovese represents anything but love. Her death was a story of apathy and selfishness, of what results when people ignore the terrified shrieks of a woman being murdered.

In the early morning of March 13, 1964, Genovese, a 28-year-old bar manager getting off work, was walking toward her apartment in the quiet Kew Gardens section of Queens. She spotted a man on the opposite side of a parking lot and began to walk swiftly toward her home. From behind, he attacked, stabbing Genovese repeatedly until she was dead. The man, 29-year-old Winston Moseley, also raped Genovese. No one came to her aid.

Alone, the crime was yet another scary moment in scary New York City. But two weeks after the slaying, The New York Times reported that while 38 neighbors had either heard or witnessed the attack, not one had acted to help.

The case became infamous, and four decades after her death, Kitty Genovese is remembered not so much as a human being but as a cultural catch phrase for inexcusable indifference. Yet to Zielonko, Genovese is alive. She is still standing there, in the Manhattan bar where the two first met on an early spring day in 1963, running a hand through her short brown hair while taking a drag from the end of a Camel cigarette.

Genovese was a talkative woman with big brown eyes, an infectious giggle and a tiny gap at the tip of her two front teeth, and the 25-year-old Zielonko was smitten. Within a week, Zielonko found a note taped to the front door of her Upper West Side apartment:

"WILL CALL YOU AT THE STREET CORNER PHONE BOOTH AT 7. --KITTY G."

That night, they agreed to meet at Seven Steps, a gay bar on Houston Street. Zielonko says Genovese told her she was once married to a man, but the marriage was annulled once she came to grips with her sexuality. Zielonko was Genovese's second relationship with a woman.

"We just hit it off," Zielonko recalled. "We meshed. I'm very quiet, and she talked a lot. We both had struggles with our sexuality, as did many people back then. We had a quick bond."

It was Zielonko's first serious relationship. For two weeks, they lived in a motel room while seeking a permanent address. Then they lucked upon 82-70 Austin St., a one-bedroom apartment above a Kew Gardens pub, Old Bailey's Bar.

For a year--"one of the happiest years of my life," Zielonko said--the two lived together. Genovese managed Ev's 11th Hour, a sports bar, while Zielonko tended bar at Club Chris.

"We would usually both work days," Zielonko said. "So we would spend our nights together."

Now 65 and retired from her job building submarines for Electric Boat in Groton, Conn., Zielonko confessed that her memory flickers from time to time. The once-vivid images of Kitty have yellowed like a stack of old newspapers. But she giggled like a schoolgirl remembering Andrew, the miniature poodle Genovese gave her. Her mind flashed back to visits with Genovese's since-deceased parents in New Canaan, Conn. Officially, in the home of Vincent and Rachel Genovese, two old-school Catholics, Mary Ann was Kitty's "friend."

"But I think her mother knew," Zielonko said. "She was always very nice to me."

On the night of March 12, 1964, Zielonko went with a friend to a bowling alley. She got home around 11 p.m., then fell asleep. A knock on the door woke her the next morning. It was two police officers, asking Zielonko to accompany them to the hospital.

"I was in shock," she says, softly. "Just ... shock."

A few days later, Zielonko attended Genovese's funeral in New Canaan, where, she said, the family refused to acknowledge her. "I think it was because of our lifestyle."

For the next six months, Zielonko said, she locked herself in the apartment, alternating between crying and drinking.